UPCOMING EVENTS

A group of disgruntled reactionaries tried to strike her down, but they only ended up making her more powerful.

Pascal Pictures has purchased the movie rights to Depression Quest developer Zoë Quinn’s Crash Override memoir, as first reported by Deadline. The book details Quinn’s battle with the online harassment and the group that emerged from it, Gamergate. The book is due out in September 2016 from Simon & Schuster, and now the film should follow not long after that. Several studios allegedly bid on the project, and some of Hollywood’s top acting talent have expressed interest in the role. Deadline claims that Scarlett Johansson, Black Widow in The Avengers films, is actively trying to get the part.

The book and the film will recount the events that led up to Quinn turning into a target for an Internet hate mob. It will explain how a bitter blog post from an ex-boyfriend provided twisted ammunition for what would become Gamergate to go after alleged corruption in the gaming space. The Quinn movie will reveal how those allegations were almost entirely manufactured with the purpose of making young men feel threatened by the cultural change that has made boys-toys scenes like gaming more inclusive.

This is an exclamation point on Quinn’s story as she has dealt with numerous threats as harassers attempt to silence her criticisms of gaming and gamers. But instead of succeeding in making the developer go away, they have instead helped fuel her rise to prominence and respect in both the gaming and now the film industry.